HTC to slash costs, focus on ‘affordable’ smartphones

Fan of the HTC One? Don’t get too used to seeing high-end devices from the Taiwanese; story goes they’ll focus on more “affordable” smartphones going forward, in a frankly desperate bid to reverse their ailing fortunes.

Talking of ailing fortunes, HTC admits that it anticipates an utterly terrible Q4, even worse than analyst estimates. It’ll reportedly slash operating costs, though it’s not clear where the savings will be made.

All in all, it’s a pretty bleak time for the manufacturer, once the darling of the Android world circa 2010’s HTC Desire. Alas, Samsung and Apple are utterly dominant at the moment, with pretty much every other manufacturer struggling to make an impact.

In an investor briefing this week, HTC financial guy Chialin Chang revealed: "We're looking at broader products in this quarter...we aim for higher volume into 2014 that will give better profitability.” Reuters interprets that as a focus on “more affordable smartphones”.

Said publication also recently suggested that HTC might be shutting down and selling seemingly-abandoned factory sites, though marketing guy Ben Ho attempted to play it down, explaining: "Like any manufacturer, we do volume planning to optimize our lines, our manufacturing and production facilities. Whether we are operating those facilities depends on market demand and our own expectations.

“When you have less demand you work with less facilities to optimize your costs. When you have demand, or bigger growth, you definitely have to activate all these facilities."

Having said all that, we were scribbling about the imminent HTC M8 flagship just a few days ago, and it’s probably unlikely that the Taiwanese will bow out of the high-end scene completely. Er, probably.

Err, apart from an annual flagship (which I doubt they'll stop making, simply due to the press coverage it generates), isn't this kinda what HTC do anyway? Also, HTC are seen as the most premium Android manufacturer by many people, seems odd to throw that away. Cutting off their, clearly failing, WP8 arm would surely be a better start to cost cutting?